Starfire Historical Mod

[boromir]

Mechs are fine as they are Mithel, don't nerf them, they must be good for something. If they can't beat Motorized, they are good for nothing.

@Fiendix: AT attachments really don't make such a big difference in this mod.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

@ Boromir - Well u were doing a pretty good job - the lost a lot of units and if you did continue that + attack in more distant areas you would have been a pain. Anyways Orthank should give in some imput on that + the supply issue for the UK + planes.
True Italy+ it subs will make a whole new difference to the game.. hope it doesnt tip the balance way in the other direction and we can have a game that actually goes to 1943..

Remember that through 1939 and 1940 its a war with the uk and they pretty much are alone agianst the germans and itlay..

F

 

[Mithel]

Boromir, no problem, I'll make a commitment to releasing an update on Wednesday and possibly another on Friday.

My changes will always be intended as "historical", I won't be "balancing power" just to make the game more "fair". With that caveat, there are numerous improvements I can make (many from your comments) that will improve your next game.

Even though I didn't intend to touch naval until v1.06 is released I'll make a couple real simple changes that might make it a bit more reasonable for Germany to wage a u-boat war against England. In the last game I played against a human UK player I put a big emphasis on navy and really kicked the UK fleet in the teeth. I had reduced their surface fleet to half of what it started at, they were afraid to sail after the first six months of war! The German navy can be fearsome but it requires investment (and that almost cost me dearly on the Russian front - I think if the Russian player had been better I would have lost).

I'll fine tune the economic trades a bit too.

How did the Soviets manage to build both more tanks and better tanks without neglecting supplies? Was the UK player doing tech sharing to the Soviets? (in my opinion they should not do that)

Could your Soviet player e-mail me any "secret" strategies they may have done to do so well? I'll keep the information confidential but I'd like to review it for possible exploits or design errors in my mod.

I think you guys should find the next game much more interesting.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12303)]

Interesting that you guys indicate Russia is able to do so well in research. My friends report that Russia is "hopelessly behind Germany on techs". I'll definitely review it a bit. I think my biggest oversight was the Russian ministers.

Mithel

well we were playing at normal - at very hard its a huge difference - germany took around 60 - 80 days less to research the same techs. I would not change it too dramatically as you may flip the balance the other way. In the game I am playing right now (very hard) I am WAY (1-2 gold techs) behind the germans and have no chance of catching up unless he stops reseaching.

F

 

[boromir]

Mithel, we do not allow trade techs among humans, under no circumstances. The UK is allowed to supply Russia only if both are at war with the Axis. So that had no impact.

It's really very easy to turn Russia into a powerhouse, even under vanilla HOI.

As for balancing - it would be best if a compromise was made between history and gameplay. After all, if the Germans need a miracle to win, or need to resort to cheesy tactics, it does spoil the fun.

Anyway, I was really shocked to see the UK field so many units too. Remember that I succeeded in destroying 24 of their units during the fall of france.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

As I said dont overdo it. Please take into account we were playing at normal. Time of techs are already better for the germans. Finally in 36 and 37 at very hard the russians have very little IC to research and they are practially sitting in one place not doing anything.

Yes orthank was very nervous but boromir built only 12 new subs - with which you should not be able to do a lot. Finally if we add the italians to that the uk may be in deep trouble so be very carefull with that.

i had around 12000 supplies when the war started and the uk was supplying me 100 - 200 per day. . I will e-mail you what I did. There is no tech sharing in our games - except to minors.
hope we do it should be a blast - especially if the war is dragged out untill 1943 or so..

F

 

[boromir]

Yup, very hard may be more favourable to the Germans.

In favour of Ger:

1) The doctrine techs the others have to research cost more.
2) The Allies have low IC at the beginning, so they can't do simultaneous research in many fields, meaning they will go behind a bit.

In favour of Allies:

1) AI fights at better efficiency and produces more units, meaning the Germans may take more losses.
2) Italy goes behind even more

 

[Mithel]

My personal opinion is that WWII would still have occurred without Molotov-Ribbentrop. I think it would have been possibly delayed. It certainly is a topic that could be open to a lot of debate. There were a lot of factors. I should give that more thought.

In my mod Russia gets tech research penalties! Not bonuses! However I failed to take into account the Russian ministers!

I don't plan to nerf mechs. I'm doing some research and giving them some thought. In vanilla HoI they are more like a modern mech division and some people here have mentioned they shouldn't be available until like 1944. My initial research leads me to think they should be much like I have them now but not available until 1941. I do think they are valuable to build but I wouldn't go hog wild with them. Vanilla HoI lets you tech up mechs to the point where they are killer units and that's not reasonable.

An AT bridgade attachment is valuable for an Infantry division. But I wouldn't go putting them on mech or armored divisions. Unfortunately Paradox gave us a clumsy system for the attached brigades and I think I've made them a lot more reasonable. I definitely don't want them too powerful as that is yet another disadvantage to the AI because the AI makes them randomly (no intelligent usage of them).

Italy is slightly overpowered right now. I'll be weakenning them up a little. Keep in mind too that you guys are playing "Europe" and without a human Japan the UK has it relatively easy in Asia.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12303)]

"AI fights at better efficiency and produces more units, meaning the Germans may take more losses."

ehh - ai is crap so that should not be an issue

@ Mithel - about the europe aspect of it - exactly the UK will have a lot of trouble to defend against the germans and allies so lets not try to weaken them too much. I did look at italy and yes they are too powerfull as they are right now.

F

 

[Mithel]

I would advise only playing on Normal. The entire economy is designed for normal and would be totally messed up by using a different difficulty setting.

"Balancing" is a difficult issue. To "balance" it we'd need to define which countries will be human played. No matter how much we tune and improve HoI the AI will still be a far weaker opponent than a decent human player.

If I were to do that I'd probably start with the assumption / rule that Germany and UK must be human played.

I'll definitely look into the UK manpower issue. I do believe they are building far too many units.

"Winning" is different depending on your definition. I totally ignore "victory points". For me a German win is to hold France and western Russia to the "end".

With my German naval strategy game I had 25 subs in 1941 (keep in mind I probably lost at least a half dozen between 1939 and then). So it sounds like Germany in your game may not have made all that strong of a u-boat war attempt.

Wow... the UK was supplying Russia with 200 supplies per day? That's some very friendly Brits!

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12303)]

Wow... the UK was supplying Russia with 200 supplies per day? That's some very friendly Brits!

- Mithel

lol he claimed he was sending that IIRC I did not check..

F

 

[Soapy Frog]

IMHO there is no justification for giving mech infantry hard target status. The reasons for it have already been given at length in other threads...

 

[boromir]

I would advise only playing on Normal. The entire economy is designed for normal and would be totally messed up by using a different difficulty setting.

"Balancing" is a difficult issue. To "balance" it we'd need to define which countries will be human played. No matter how much we tune and improve HoI the AI will still be a far weaker opponent than a decent human player.

If I were to do that I'd probably start with the assumption / rule that Germany and UK must be human played.

I'll definitely look into the UK manpower issue. I do believe they are building far too many units.

"Winning" is different depending on your definition. I totally ignore "victory points". For me a German win is to hold France and western Russia to the "end".

With my German naval strategy game I had 25 subs in 1941 (keep in mind I probably lost at least a half dozen between 1939 and then). So it sounds like Germany in your game may not have made all that strong of a u-boat war attempt.

Wow... the UK was supplying Russia with 200 supplies per day? That's some very friendly Brits!

- Mithel

I agree that balancing is tough ... yeah I had a feeling that you would be doing it around a Germany vs UK setup. Keep in mind though, that historically the Brits could never had attempted D-DAY alone. Here they can do it easily. Personally, I consider Germany vs Russia to be what WW2 was all about. Then I see the UK coming in as third, then Italy. If USA jumps in, its Japan instead of Italy as fifth. Sixth player would then be Italy.

Normal level ... hmm, dunno if that's good for the Axis Mithel, what this means is that the starting IC penalties have no effect on the Allies, they can still research what they want.

I don't quite see how the war could last till the end of the game? I have been playing many MP games for over a year and I have never ever gone into 1942 even?

The Germans should have a chance to achieve victory up till 1942, mid 1942 - mid 1943 chances should be more or less equal, after mid 1943 it should be victory for the Allies.

UK was supplying Russia only during Barbarossa which lasted one whole month

EDIT: Still, in your mod Mithel these supplies I guess make a huge difference.

EDIT2: I agree with your definition of victory more or less. Still, it seems impossible to achieve in the current setup against experienced players at normal level.

 

[Mithel]

Soapy, I intend to give mech divisions more thought. We are of course stuck with the code treating them as hard targets. Hence we must just decide what does a "HoI mech division" actually represent in real life terms. Is it a motorized division with halftracks (APCs)? Is it a "light" Panzer division? Personally I think I've got them modeled fairly good but I think it's worth giving them more thought.

Boromir, the reason I feel the UK must be human played is that they are the lead of the Allies and it's essential to have them intelligently manage diplomacy and inviting nations (the USA) into the Allies.

Properly I'd say the "best" multiplayer game (ignoring networking issues, etc) would be to have at least six human players (Germany, UK, Russia, Italy, Japan and USA - more or less in that order).

I can't really see playing beyond about 1943 as it is now. But as we get the German/Russian balance better this should extend out games better.

I like to go into Barbarossa with a stockpile of 20,000+ supplies. At 50 to 100 a day that takes quite a while to build up and I consider that fairly heavy investment into supply production.

If you play on a difficulty beyond normal you'll never see resource shortages. As Germany I only started to see my stockpiles start to slip down after a few months of driving deep into Russia (summer 1941). If the players played out till 1943 or so I could see Germany dealing with some serious oil shortages. I do need to tune that aspect a bit more.

- Mithel

 

[boromir]

Mithel, 50-100 a day? wow, I would be cooked with that. I played at a surplus of 20 and got hopelessly outnumbered by the Russians and the UK fielded half my army size.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

Mithel, 50-100 a day? wow, I would be cooked with that. I played at a surplus of 20 and got hopelessly outnumbered by the Russians and the UK fielded half my army size.

maybe putting the administrative genius back would help?? I think Mithel removed him?

F

 

[Mithel]

Without seeing a save game file or two to evaluate the number of divisions of each type my feeling still is that you guys played too "armor heavy". When armor gets chewed up it costs a ton of supplies to rebuild.

I misspoke, I just looked at my save games and calculate that was averaging an increase of only roughly 15 to 20 supplies per day in the early pre war years (less as war approached and I shifted to building more units).

Something many players may miss is "micro managing" your supply needs by using Logisitics Wizard commanders. As Germany I'm fairly sure using every logistics wizard available I reduced my supply usage to one half what it otherwise would be. I think I should remove some of the logistics wizards.

The Ministers that gave absurd bonuses to IC were removed so that I could better model the economy accurately. The Adminitrative Genius really messes that up. Germany must hit Russia early enough to knock out their industrial potential. If Russia is given too much time then I expect Russia will crush Germany in HoI. The summer of 1941 time frame is critical. If Germany hits after June/July 1941 then the Russians historically would have had too many IL-2s and T-34s and Germany would have been in a world of hurt. If Germany can get ready to hit Russia in the Summer of 1940 then Germany probably should win. How do we model HoI so that it reflects this? Well, France can't fall too fast and defeating France must chew up the German army a bit. (Likewise with Poland)

- Mithel

 

[boromir]

maybe putting the administrative genius back would help?? I think Mithel removed him?

F

He did, but then the Germans would be behind in the industrial race even more. Also, the giving away of supplies is a serious problem - supplies are worth their weight in gold in this mod. In the end I gave away most of my supplies to the EE minors via events (and on occasion Sweden, which was a mistake) anyway, so my entire effort went to waste really. Could have been put to much better use ...

 

[Orthank]

United Kongdom,

28 transports per month is not much, if I would not spend so many IC on Destroyers 24 also sending them on convoys (10) and naval aircraft (6 improved naval bombers) these 18 submarines would easly smashed my convoys.

As Barbarossa began i had 16 500 supplies in stock and i started sending 200 per day to Russia but soon after fews days i switched to 400 per day .

If there will be Italy in war as well i see it hard to survive somewhere else than on Isles. The biggest problem will be Luftwaffe, it is so easy to move all aircraft from place to place, perhaps if aircraft would lost all organisation after redeploying to new airfield... Tacticals (as well as multirole and long range) would have larger meaning and not only those nasty Stukas and interceptors.

God save the Queen!

 

[boromir]

Without seeing a save game file or two to evaluate the number of divisions of each type my feeling still is that you guys played too "armor heavy". When armor gets chewed up it costs a ton of supplies to rebuild.

I misspoke, I just looked at my save games and calculate that was averaging an increase of only roughly 15 to 20 supplies per day in the early pre war years (less as war approached and I shifted to building more units).

Something many players may miss is "micro managing" your supply needs by using Logisitics Wizard commanders. As Germany I'm fairly sure using every logistics wizard available I reduced my supply usage to one half what it otherwise would be. I think I should remove some of the logistics wizards.

The Ministers that gave absurd bonuses to IC were removed so that I could better model the economy accurately. The Adminitrative Genius really messes that up. Germany must hit Russia early enough to knock out their industrial potential. If Russia is given too much time then I expect Russia will crush Germany in HoI. The summer of 1941 time frame is critical. If Germany hits after June/July 1941 then the Russians historically would have had too many IL-2s and T-34s and Germany would have been in a world of hurt. If Germany can get ready to hit Russia in the Summer of 1940 then Germany probably should win. How do we model HoI so that it reflects this? Well, France can't fall too fast and defeating France must chew up the German army a bit. (Likewise with Poland)

- Mithel

The attack on Russia took place 1st June 1941. Mithel, its not that simple with the armour imo. If you do not go armour heavy, the other side will destroy you by the time supplies become a significant hindrance. Also remember that the Russians have an advantage in supplies + can get Allied help + have US help (that is if you didn't modify the lend lease events). So the Russians build up their tanks, they crush the Germans, and supplies are not a problem, as there is no one more to fight ... Going back to oil again, if you have many pre-war resources as was the case on both sides, by the time it gets chewed up the war is over too.

Both sides have to play armour heavy. The side that doesn't loses.

I was aware that supplies cost a lot in the mod, which is why I tried to stockpile some. It came out very poorly, but I didn't put much effort into logistic wizard tricks.

EDIT: also, you cannot go on the offensive without HA units.